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A struggle for me today, even for an Araucaria. Managed to fill in the grid thanks to checkers but still can’t figure out some of the clues. Favourite clues were 23ac, 7dn.

Edits thanks to Mike

Across

1

CHANGE BOWLER

9

PIANOLA

the self-playing piano using perforated paper rolls. PIA, girl’s name meaning pious i.e. good + NOLA[n]=”not the last of singing sisters”

13,10

HORS D’OEUVRE

HORS[e]=”Starter… that doesn’t get to the finish” + (overdue)*

11

OUT OF WORK

loose translation of 13 10. Not sure if there’s something more.

12

DARTS

reverse of Strad[ivarius] i.e. violin that “can be played”

14

GRANNY KNOT

often mistakenly tied when attempting a reef knot.

16

MONTE CARLO

(locator men)*. The Man Who Broke the Bank at Monte Carlo is a song and a film.

19

DERV

as in diesel fuel. Sounds like “d’oeuvre”

20

NEVER

need help with the wordplay here – something to do with [Gui]NEVER[e]?
Half of NEVER NEVER=hire purchase=”HP”, found in [Gui]NEVER[e]

21

BIG BERTHA

the howitzer. BERTH=”position” in BIGA[my]

23

TERRIER

TIER=”row” around ERR=”stray”

24

OLD BLUE

“topping yellow” => [g]OLD, + BLUE=”colour”

25

PERMANENT WAY

cryptic reference to railway tracks, hence “training”

Down

1

CHAPTER AND VERSE

CHAPTER=”Canons” as in priests + ADVERSE around N[ew]

2

ALOOF

A + rev(FOOL)

3

GLAMOUR

G[ood] + L’AMOUR

4

BODIKIN

can’t see the wordplay – help?
I=1=”first” inside BODKIN

5

WEEKDAYS

There are five of them. WEE + (ad Sky)*

6,8

ENVIRONMENTALLY SENSITIVE AREA

(Revive many internationals else)*

7

UP TO THE MINUTE

nice cd

15

HEBRAISM

HEM=border around BRA=support + IS

17

AUBERON

Auberon Waugh was a writer. Oberon=”king” with O swapped for AU=gold

18

LEGHORN

the Italian port. LEG=walker + (cape) HORN

22

ENDOW

END=last + OW[ed]

This entry was posted on Friday, March 12th, 2010 at 12:45 pm and is filed under Guardian.
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A long time since Leghorn became Livorno to be sure! Several favourites here. Never as half of HP! Simply excellent!! A splendid reference to the late Auberon Waugh and best of all the ins for 15dn to get Hebraism.

MikeM – dont’ give up – I cruised this one but struggled with Rufus on Monday (hangs head in shame). And it took me a while to confirm from the OED that a bodikin is a dimunive body, a corpuscle or an atom.

Bodikin is a diminutive of body as in the phrase “Odds Bodikins” as a very old-fashioned (medieval?)minor curse. I think it’s from “God’s Little Body”. Where would I be without Rentaghost?

Took me a while to get into this one but, as is often the case with Araucaria, once I had a few the rest came quite quickly, with the exceptions of 11, which I’m pretty sure I still don’t understand, 15 and 18.

Thanks, manehi. I solved this in an odd way, getting the left hand side of the puzzle out almost completely without making many inroads on the right hand side. I loved the long anagram when I eventually got enough checking letters to work on it! BODIKIN gave me the most trouble in the end.

Rob — I took 11ac to be a literal translation of the French ‘hors’ = ‘out’ and ‘d’oeuvre’ = ‘of work’. Maybe there’s something else going on, but I can’t think what it would be!

A fairly straightforward Araucaria, but a pleasure to do as usual. 11 and 20 particularly satisfying.

I presume in 1ac, Richard and Bryan, that if it had been ‘his first ball’ he would have been the opening rather than the change bowler, which is fair enough but I didn’t find this definition entirely convincing.

I read 7d as a sort of double definition, rather than a cd, manehi.

Afterthought: can’t we now burn the bra (as in 15)….together with the church and the journalist, the French and the Spanish?

I guessed BODGKIN (first to go=G) and was briefly quite excited at the prospect that there was in fact a rhyme for my surname that I’d so far failed to find.
Good fun puzzle, though 20ac seemed to lack definition slightly – felt rather more like two subsidiary indications.

Well, the class dummy increases his Araucaria finishes to 6! I’ll have to stop counting soon. Hard work for me of course, that’s why I’m the class dummy. And it’s also a rare full 5 days of finishes too, yee hah, maybe I’m improving, or just getting more stubborn about not giving up?

Wasn’t convinced by the second part of 16 which can’t define the answer as it refers to the breaker of the bank not it’s location. No doubt somebody will find a way of twisting normal English to say otherwise, I await with interest.

Mick, I agree with you about the lack of a definition in 20ac. My enjoyment of this puzzle was slightly spoiled by there being rather too many liberties taken, e.g. 11ac needs at least a question mark, inaccurate def. at 16ac (I agree with you, Derek!), 24ac: is OLD BLUE really a standard phrase? In 18dn I (as usual) don’t like “in Italy” as the definition. Of course we expact some of these from Araucaria, but there seemed to be more than usual here.

On the other hand, I liked 3dn (after spending ages trying to use BON, of course), and 25ac raised a smile (and a bit of a groan).

Agreed with Mick @20 re 20 inasmuch as I looked for a typical Araucaria codicil about “clues x,x ,x etc are not fully clued but have a common theme” but there wasn’t one. Definitely a dud clue, as is the answer OLD BLUE — what’s that when it’s at home??

I parsed 9ac slightly differently. PI=good + NOLA(n)=girl, not the last of singing sisters on A, the definition being “roll of notes” rather than “A roll with notes”, hence no double duty. However, I think either of yours are fine too.

Just to add… thought this was great on the whole (particularly the brilliant 7 down), somewhat marred by the Oxbridge elitism of 24 across. Unfortunately, there is (a little) too much of that in Araucaria’s puzzles generally in my opinion.

I agree with you about 1ac. Does a ‘change bowler’ not bowl his own first ball?

I too like the idea of a bonfire of old chestnuts…
…can we add ‘these days’ = AD, please?

20ac was frustrating. I spent far too long trying to associate Arthur’s Queen with brown, sauce, horse, or power! I always make the mistake of forgetting that setters so aften use expressions which are no longer commonly in current usage!

We guessed “bodgkin” too, Mick. A quick Google led to an embarrassing moment when I discovered that it was the name of a disease.

“Err, I think that’s just a typo of ‘Hodgkin'” said my colleague. At which point we figured it was probably Bodikin.

Apart from some references that only a nonagenarian would spot immediately (“Leghorn” ?!) this wasn’t too bad. Some pretty loose (and non-existent) definitions, here and there but we finished (which is not always the case with Araucaria) so it can’t have been that bad.

Mick @ 20, and others following – yes, you have a point about 20. I didn’t notice the lack until you pointed it out. But it didn’t – and still doesn’t, oddly – feel wrong. So can we say: definition – never given?

Finished an Araucaria for only the second or third time.
Unsatisfying as ever though. Too many answers that were “well I suppose it must be” and then a trawl through dictionaries and not enough “ahhhhh” lightbulb moments.
Plenty of quibbles I can’t be bothered to raise but one polite
plea for help. Fully willing to believe I’ve missed something obvious but, in 14A, how does bird = KNOT?
Thanks

A knot is some kind of bird, I think. I always find at least a third of Araucaria clues fall into the “I suppose it has to be x” category, without really knowing why – even after reading the explanations.

Painful. Leghorn, Old Blue, Hebraism, hated them all, but worst clue for me was 6,8d. Can we ban huge anagrams? This one had 28 letters. Possibly gettable with sufficient crossing letters, but if you haven’t got those then there’s no point continuing, the setter has you locked into an impossible puzzle.

We managed to finish this one bar a couple of “Well the answer must be that, and x must mean y” clues.
Grumpy Andrew, I sometimes get the long anagrams straight off with no crossing letters, today I had one or two when I got it. It’s not always the case, but sometimes these long anagrams are my lifeline!

7d was a favourite, 11a I thought was an Araucaria ‘groaner’. ‘Hors d’oeuvre’ never means ‘out of work’, and it seems a bit cruel that you not only have to guess you’ve to translate it literally, but you also have to be able to.

My least favourite setter. However, one comes here to learn and to approach the crossword with the determination of finishing it.

Many cavils. ‘Hors’ is never ‘out’ but ‘outside’. Also 1ac was very loose, as commented already. How one is to guess that, in 9ac, ‘pia’ = ‘pious’ = ‘good’. I have been following these blogs daily for over a month and I would say that there is more latitude shown towards this setter to any other. He seems to be treated with a forgiveness not allowed (‘endowed’?)to any other setter.

Of course, all tastes are catered for over a week, say. But a lot of excuses are made which I don’t see for other setters.

Grumpy, yes. Perhap if I was more familiar with crossword conventions, more successful obviously, then I wouldn’t have such a downer on this setter. Harumph ….

Derek (@21) – I don’t think 16a can be parsed properly – it’s just one of those elliptical clues that Araucaria specialises in, which you know are right but can’t really explain. I liked it, but I can see why a purist wouldn’t.

I agree wholeheartedly. Without wishing to criticise Araucaria, I have said a few times before ” … there is more latitude shown towards this setter to any other. He seems to be treated with a forgiveness not allowed (’endowed’?)to any other setter”.

It’s always good to give examples when you think a setter is wrong, so bravo to those who did. But it’s probably a bit harder, re the Grauniad, to condemn one setter for being shown ‘too much latitude’ in a week (or decade) where so many puzzles are deemed ‘stodgy’ (see above). Or in plain English cr*p.

Fact is, whether you or Araucaria like it or not, this guy is seen as a Great British Institution, and if you look over his career it really is incredibly easy to see why. The invention and perpetration of a whole new style; of Araubeticals and so on: so let it rock: I’d have this allegedly unruly fare over some boring Ximenean rigidry any day.

So it’s on the bonfire with all references to Oxbridge, universities in general, the bible and religious references, is it? All future Guardian crosswords to be submitted to the Political Correctness Police before printing? Come on folks – it’s a crossword, not a manifesto.